A grandmother who works as a bus monitor has had over $200,000 donated to a fund set up in her name since a video of her being berated and insulted by students on a bus hit YouTube.  She did not complain, but once the video went viral, the school called the police, who have spoken to the students.

Am I the only one wondering why those students were able to still speak after talking like that to an adult?  One would think that their jaws and several other parts of their skelature would be held together with wire and screws by now.

I guess I’ve finally reached that “When I was growing up” stage of life.  Had I had ever spoken to an adult, of any age, station, or sex, like those little miscreants did to this lady, if she didn’t beat my ass within an inch of my life, then the bus driver would have, and would have taken time to explain to every parent on the route that my ass-beating was the reason the bus was running late.  Failing that, some adult member of my family would have used my ass beating as an example to the younger children.  I would have earned this not only because I disrespected an adult, but also because I did it while using the family name, and no-one was allowed to bring that much shame to my family, no matter how screwed up we may have been.

Example – Once, very early in my school life, I fell asleep in class.* When I was ever so gently nudged by the grandmotherly woman who taught my class, I was a bit whiny, which got me sent out into the hallway and eventually to the principal’s office.  This time, I got a good talking to about staying awake and not talking back to teacher (the Board of Education stayed on its hook this time), and a call to my mother.  On the way home, I had to walk past my grandmother’s house and the homes of two of my aunts.  That was the longest walk of my life.  Grandma met me in the yard and spanked me.  Both of my aunts got a swipe in, and I really caught it when I got home.  Guess what?  I only got sent to the principal’s office twice more in the time I went to school, and that was for fighting to defend either myself or one of my brothers.  If I’d ever acted like these twerps, there’d be a small unmarked grave somewhere on the prairie.

I’ve never had to do such things with my kids, but they all know that death is an option.  One good part of having more than one kid is that they know that you have a spare if you have to thin the herd due to bad traits in the bloodline.**

Instead, these precious little snowflakes got a “talking to”.  Maybe they had their cell phones taken away for a few hours, or possibly they had to go to their air-conditioned, HD TV equipped, Internet connected rooms for a little while so they could think about what they did.  I’m sure that will straighten them right up. It’s not like they did this to a real person, at least not someone they would consider a real person. This is just someone’s grandmother who is taking her time to monitor the bus so that everyone gets home safe.  If it was someone important, I’m sure they would have been on their best behavior.

*Staying up late reading “Little House on the Prairie” by the light of the moon may sound adventurous, but it ruins your eyes and puts you to sleep when you ought to be learning to count higher than 20.
**Kidding of course.  I love my children, but I love them enough to teach and enforce respect.

Update – Looks like at least one of the parents is trying to do the right thing.

• From the “Something Rotten in Boston” Department – A corpse flower, known for its….. ‘unique’ scent, just bloomed at the zoo in Boston.  It’s stench of rotting flesh is supposed to draw the insects that pollinate it, but I’m convinced that it’s to keep primates from going near it.  Of course, nothing says love like a bouquet that includes a four foot flower that smells like rotten hamburger, and these flowers are exceedingly rare, so I’m sure they will be the thing to get your sweetie for Valentines next year.  Lord knows every other expensive and silly thing has been thrown at me over the years.
• From the “Doing It Wrong” Department – Two parties recently met in Maryland in order to sell a used car.  When they met, one of the sellers pulled a gun and tried to rob the buyers.  The lady in the buying group drew her own gun and started firing. The two goblins dropped their gun and ran away.  So far this sounds like a good defensive gun use.  Unfortunately, the lady admits she fired into the air to scare the robbers, then pursued them and continued to fire.  She’s currently under arrest on weapons charges.  Class, turn to page 38 and read the first paragraph aloud with me:  “There is no such thing as a warning shot.   If someone drops their gun and runs, they are no longer a threat and I no longer need to shoot at them.”  Even though she’s in hot water, I’m glad that neither she nor her companion were harmed.
• From the “Assemble the Minions” Department – Larry Ellison, the head of Oracle, is in negotiations to buy 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai.  Some will see this as a rich man indulging himself in the twilight of his life and setting up a tropical paradise to retire to.  I see this as a precursor to a new James Bond-esque plotline.  I’ll get more worried when he starts putting heliports inside dormant volcanoes and constructing a secret submarine base on the island.  Those of you who have had to deal with Oracle over the years should be shaking your heads in understanding right about now.
• From the “About Damn Time” Department – The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted yesterday to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress, setting up a vote by the full House.  Better minds than mine are weighing in on Mr. Holder, so I’ll hold off on that for now.  I saw some of the ‘coverage’ on the NBC news last night, and one of the Democratic congressmen was defending Holder by saying that he had given the committee everything he could, and that everything he’d held back was classified*.  Let me clue the good congressman in here;  There is nothing so classified that Congress cannot be told about it.  Your ‘need to know’ became active the minute you put your over-compensated butt in the chair.  If y’all don’t want to compromise information, sources, or methods, then hold a session behind closed doors, but hiding behind “It’s classified!” is a non-starter.  I look forward to the partisan shrieking of the next few days.  Who’s got the popcorn?  One final thought – Do you think we’ll see people in the streets chanting “Obama lied, Mexicans died!  Holder lied, Brian Terry died!” anytime soon?
• From the “Enemy Action” Department – NBC News got caught with their hands in the cookie jar again recently when it was revealed that they edited a recording of a Mitt Romney speech to make it look like he was out of touch with common folk.  This is the third time in recent memory that they have been caught in such shenanigans.  At what point do we just rename them TASS and be done with it?

*Paraphrasing from memory here.  It was a soundbite and I didn’t note who said it.  If only there was not only a network of some kind where I could go back and re-watch the broadcast as well as the energy to do so.